The proposed chairman of a new Car Park Review Group has been voted out from his job before even starting.

Councillors on Teignbridge District Council’s overview and scrutiny committee were set to approve a revision to the Terms of Reference to the group after it was agreed at the last meeting of the review group that the portfolio holder for car parking would chair the group that would consist of three Conservative, two Liberal Democrat and one Independent councillors.

But the overview and scrutiny committee rejected that arrangement, saying that it would not be compatible with an open and transparent council.

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Cllr Gordon Hook, leader of the Liberal Democrat group, said: “This is an important group and they do very valuable work and I am very keen for them to get on and work. But the Portfolio Holder cannot be the chairman of a group scrutinising the group of the executive and the spokesman for the executive. It would be akin to being the gamekeeper and the chief poacher.

“This appointment would not be compatible with openness and a transparent council and we cannot accept that the portfolio holder, whatever political party they represent, can be allowed to be the chairman of an overview and scrutiny review group.

“It is right that the portfolio holder attends the meetings, provides information, statistics and their opinion, but I don’t think that they should be chairing the group. It is not beyond the ability of the six people on the group to elect one of them to be the chairman.”

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Cllr Mike Haines, chairman of the overview and scrutiny committee, had said that the reason it was proposed that the portfolio holder was being recommended to be the chairman as that previously the committee had failed to agree on a chairman.

Cllr Mike Hocking supporting Cllr Hook’s objections, and said: “It should be up to the group to pick its own chairman. It would be perceived conflict of interest if the portfolio holder was the chairman of the group.”

Cllr Phil Bullivant, who is the portfolio holder for car parks, had said: “It is already agreed that anything that the group decides on should come back through overview and scrutiny. The group will work cohesively and will maintain a by-partisan approach and will work together to come up with ideas that will go back to overview and scrutiny for consideration.

It had been suggested by Cllr Haines, who said he had no issues with the appointment of the portfolio holder as chairman, that a trial arrangement be provided to see if there was or was not a problem with the portfolio holder chairing the group, but the Liberal Democrats called for a vote.

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Five members voted in favour of the portfolio holder being the chairman of the group, with seven voting against, and one abstention.

Six members of the committee - five Conservatives and one Liberal Democrat - who had been in attendance for the start of the meeting had left the council chamber by the time the committee had started discussions on the item on the agenda.